Thursday, July 2, 2009

Jellyfish Gone Wild

National Geographic Magazine and Pink Tentacle reported on an impending invasion of giant Japanese jellyfish (called Nomura's jellyfish).

With the World Swimming Championships coming up in the Mediterranean Sea, the open water swimmers have got to be happy that these jellyfish are not anywhere near Rome.

The last thing the athletes want is a repeat of another jellyfish invasion that occurred during the 2007 World Swimming Championships.

"They were big," said world champion Larisa Ilchenko who was referring to the large Australian blue blubbers. "I could hear girls screaming on the first lap when they got stung." Top pro Angela Maurer agreed, "My whole body just burned. There were so many jellyfish out there."

But even with the huge jellyfish lurking around Japanese waters, the innovative Japanese open water swim series, called the Across Nippon Swims series continues to expand. The 12-part Across Nippon Swims series hosts events from Okinawa to north of Tokyo between early May to late October, featuring 0.4K, 1K and 5K solo races as well as 1.6K 4-person masters relays that are generating a lot of new enthusiasts of all ages and abilities.

2 comments:

Mike Solberg said...

Is that for real??? Or is this the equivalent of "April Fools Day" somewhere?

Steven Munatones said...

Yes, these are for real. It was reported by National Geographic and in the Japanese press. I was just in Tokyo last week.